Mirrors don't lie. That's the tool this Erwin-Penland-created commercial for Clemson University takes. Noting most people don't undress in public, don't humiliate their friends, don't vandalize the campus and don't sleep around, the commercial makes it clear you shouldn't either.

"Our goal with this campaign is to reach people - students and non-students - and make them think about their own behavior," said Vice President for Student Affairs Gail DiSabatino. "There is such a bombardment of advertising that promotes alcohol and sports. This is one attempt to combat those promotions."

It won't be an easy job but the message will be spread across posters, newspaper, radio and video.

Giving the New and Improved! Ask.com a promotional kick, Hanft Raboy & Partners personified the nagging questions that sit fussing in the back of our heads -- or, in this case, on our shoulders.

Watch as an elephantine nag weighs down an inquisitive 8th-grade boy. Here, a cop contemplates where to meet cool girls. And in our favourite spot, a pregnant woman wonders, "Can I eat eggs, clams and crab legs?" -- through an elderly Indian man.

Each question-asker accentuates its host's musings in a slightly tone-deaf way, imbuing the spots with quirky charm. And the tagline ensures we know exactly what each shoulder-bound burden represents: "Get the best answers to all your nagging questions."

Here's "Life Story," a spot by IBD Brands for the Panasonic Lumix camera. It's narrated by a guy trying to capture meaningful moments of his life -- except the most crucial factor (his face) keeps getting cut out. Hence the need for a Lumix, which sports a wide-angle lens.

They convey her into the air before she alights angelically upon some faceless dude, strokes his shoulder and croons, "I've never felt so close to my man."

Cheesy, so cheesy, and there doesn't appear to be any connection with the fabric and the love interest at all. Did he precipitate the wind dance? Or did fine fabric save their fraying relationship? One commenter was all, "I was hoping the fabric was connected to his suit as workers were still stitching it."

That would've been fun to watch. This rang more like a parody for an early-'90s perfume ad: it felt loaded with banal effects (hot actress, out-of-body experience, a thin stab at love) but lacked sublimity.

What would happen if a Thickburger jumped into a cold swimming pool? "Shrinkage" -- one ad among many for Hardee's Little Thickburger. Despite its focus on (small) size, (wide) breadth and general meatiness, it is radically devoid of gigantic titty jokes or other innuendos.

Each spot sports its own overly cute Thickburger-vs-Little-Thickburger comparison and ends with the same glib line: "It's a Thickburger, but little."

If Daria ever went into advertising, a slogan like that would've been her magnum opus.

Patsy, a little potato-faced woman, doesn't know how to talk to her kids about drugs. But she knows that she should, so she finds ways to unearth drug use in ways they won't expect: ambushing them in the shower, patting them down mid-embrace, and stripping labels off the family's prescription pills. (Don't ask. I was clueless about the logic of that.)

In the end, well-meaning Patsy only alienates her kids and bamboozles her husband into accidentally taking female hormone pills. (No labels on the drug bottles, remember?) The moral of this story? "Don't be a Patsy."

"I was immediately attracted to the idea of turning the movie screen into a kind of mirror to the audience," says Chris Hutsul of Soft Citizen, referring to the spots he directed for the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).

They're smart, funny and unexpectedly existential -- but also familiar, because you see yourself in each of these snapshots: your rage at late-coming friends, your perplexity toward abstract cinema, or the way some foreign films turn you into an overthinking, turtleneck-sporting douchebag. With a ponytail.

They end neatly -- gratefully, even -- with the words "We're glad you're here." (So glad, in fact, that they -- meaning VIFF -- have also given you a game to play. It's an amusing one-time distraction, enough of an experience to leave you feeling good, post-chortle.)